Happy Reading Bookworms!

Dec 20 A Quick Look Back at 2017

Looking back over the books I read this year, I noticed several things. The first trend I noticed was that I read mainly female authors. I know that I gravitate towards female writers, but it was interesting that (so far) this year, I only read 12 books written by men (13, if you count Sheryl Sandberg's Option B that she cowrote with Adam Grant). It seems like most readers are actively trying to read more books by women and people of color. And I do want to support authors of color; I read several books by writers of color this year, mostly women. But in 2018, I want to try and make a conscious effort to read more male authors. I anticipate that most of them will be non-fiction because I gravitate towards women's fiction, but do enjoy non-fiction written by men.

Another trend I noticed this year was the number of YA novels I read this year. I read 15 true YA novels, with a handful of middle grade books earlier in the year. I have always loved YA novels, especially when I was in high school and college, but it seems that I still appreciate them as a late twenty-something. I think I pick up YA after reading something heavy or if things are stressful in my own life. For the most part, YA novels are pretty fluffy, and I think my soul needs that reprieve every now and then. It doesn't hurt that YA novels are usually readily available at the library, so I never have to wait too long if I put them on hold.

I also noticed that I read a lot of backlist novels and older books this year. I read 26 books that were written before 2011. I considered any book written and published within in the last 5 years to be recent, so anything published before 2012, I considered a backlist book. A couple of the older ones were published between 2009 and 2011, but the majority were published in the 1990s to early 2000s. There are so many great books that I haven't read yet, so I try to make a concerted effort to read a lot of backlist. It seems like the reading community (specifically bookstagram and the reading corner of the internet) focuses solely on new releases, so it is refreshing to read something that everyone isn't raving about at that exact moment.